nning application of the conjunctival test, WE HAD NO
KNOWLEDGE OF ANY SERIOUS RESULTS FROM ITS USE.... It has the great
disadvantage of producing a decidedly uncomfortable lesion, and it is
not infrequently followed by serious inflammations of the eye, which
not only produce great physical discomfort and require weeks of active
tratment, BUT WHICH MAY PERMANENTLY AFFECT THE VISION, AND EVEN LEAD
TO ITS COMPLETE DESTRUCTION.... W ehave had a number of verbal reports
of eye complications, some of them relating to very serious
conditions; and we are sure they are much commoner than the references
we have communicated would indicate.... In fact we are strongly of the
opinion that any diagnostic procedure which will so frequently result
in serious lesions of the eye has no justification in medicine...."

The conclusions concernng the occasionally disastrous consequences of
this eye-test were shortly confirmed by other experimenters. During
the following year, two Massachusetts physicians reported a study made
in "the out-patient clinic of the Carney Hospital and the
Massachusetts Chartiable Eye and Ear Infirmary," and they add: "We are
most indebted to the staff of the latter institution for allowing us
to make use of their material.... We have discarded the conjunctival
test, AS BEING OCCASIONALLY PRODUCTIVE OF DISASTROUS RESULTS."

In May, 1909, two Baltimore physicians reported their trials with two
forms of the tuberculin tests, "the result of over a year of
experience with patients coming to the Phipps Dispensary of the Johns
Hopkins Hospital." A year later they make an additional report.

"In May, 1909, we reported the results of the conjunctival and
cutaneous test in 500 patients. The present report deals with 1,000
additional patients to whom these tests were administered, and who
formed THE UNSELECTED MATERIAL OF AN AMBULANT CLINIC, the Phipps
Dispensary of the Johns Hopkins Hospital."

They, too, suggest the necessity for caution in making this
experiment. If a drop of the tuberculin, first in one eye and then in
the other, produced no reaction,

"we refrained from further instillations, fearing the possible
intensity of a reaction consequent upon a second instillation of
tuberculin into an eye. Our fear is based on evidence, gathered
accidentally, that a second instillation may give a positive and even
a severe reaction in a case in which a similar test gave a negative
result.

In January, 1909, one of